I am the brother of Matilda
by Catalyst23
Summary: A slightly drunken confession of the elder brother of Matilda. He is a bit philosophical, overly analytical, and more than a bit depressed.


"I think I'm ruined," I said.

"Don't say that!" she said.

"Yeah, but I am. You're our hope," I said.

I was born early, when my parents were young. My sister was born late, at the bare edge of fertility. Maybe the motility of sperm or the efficacy of egg is enhanced by the wisdom of age. Or perhaps she is just special. I'm not. I know that. I'm told that. I'm just another thing that exists, nothing more. I have always been 'nothing more'.

A little over a decade after my ignominious birth she was born. I should have resented it. Perhaps I should have resented her, but that would fit too nicely into the story. Instead I chose to see what my parents were too blind to see. And just my luck, what I saw was not imaginary, but real. She truly was what the story books said she should be. She was extraordinary.

The only rebellion I could conjure was seeing in her more than they, my parents, were capable of seeing. Consumed by this, I saw more than what was truly there. I was blinded by what I presumed was there. I expected of her more than was reasonable. It is my guilt. I was guilty of resenting her.

Damn her. Why did she have to be more than what I saw? My sight, my preconceptions, those were my rebellion. I wished to mold her, to train her, to shape her into what I wanted her to be. And yet she became more than what my parents expected, more than what I demanded. I wanted her to be what I wanted her to be. She was not more or less, but something which transcended such binary descriptions. She was; I am grateful to have experienced her. She was, and that is all you can really say about her.

Yet she was something other; while I was the desired child she existed beside preconceived conceptions. I conformed, she rebelled. My parents said that I ought to be this, and so I strove to be that. My parents told her that she ought to be that, or rather, they told her that she could not be that. She told them no, at least, she told them no at first.

She said "YES!," I can be that! At least, I can be that if I want to be that. I may not choose to be that, but that is a choice, and I have every ability to make that choice no matter what you say. I am not what you say, I am what **I** say!

It is easy to define yourself by that which you are not. She defined herself not by that which she was told she should be, but by that which she saw that she could be. She was not me. She eventually became the apotheosis of herself, but first she needed to define herself by the perspective of others. That would be me, and my mother and father.

I am a failure. An extraordinary child is still a child. A magnificent human being is still, at heart, a human being. It was not until my adulthood that I truly understood that concept. I failed her. She sought self-discovery. All that I could offer was condescension and parroted parental remarks. I was no challenge. I was no inspiration. I was nothing. I was ten.

The glorious teens. Ain't they great? Rebellion, and drinking, and sex, and high school, and responsibility, and your first job, and wow! I got $200 for a whole week of work, and your friend got pregnant, and romance is more than asking your parents to drive you to the theater, and holy shit I'm allowed to drive, did the government really think this through? and drinking, and school, and it seems like middle school, but it's not, and now my actions have consequences, and I can pay for my own desires, so long as they cost less than $200 a week, and what is rent, and I can attend musicals if I want to get laid, and I can buy a car, holy shit, really a car, like a for realsy vehicle that I can drive? wow, that is, like, intense, but hey! I can drive my friends to the theater and that's freedom, which is, like, what America is about, right? Being a teen is a strange confluence.

I'm an adult now. I got over the weirdness of adolescence. Now I pay bills and clean dishes and mow the lawn, not because I am told to but because I have goals. To the youth of the world this may not seem like an explanation, but when you are an adult, it absolutely will be an explanation. I want a mown lawn and lilac bushes along the back fence. I want order, and a child, and to hold someone I can love for all my life. That last clause might, rather almost certainly will, pass you entirely by. However it is true. I want a mown lawn. And someone who smiles at me when I enter a room, and who will continue to smile when I enter a room even when I'm eighty, and whom I will feel such an indescribable amount of joy for that when I see them I can do nothing other than smile for the sheer joy of their existence. That is love, and love is mutual. Learn this, you whipper snappers, and get off my lawn. Ye bastards, I guess.

Being young is great. Holy hell, it's the best high you will ever experience. Better than weed, better than heroin, I guess, I ain't never did heroin because that shit is intense, but I did smoke weed more than a few times and that was fun and also what the hell is cocaine and speed like? I guess, from the literature, that marijuana and alcohol are depressants (in the purely medical sense) but I've always felt very energetic after taking these so-called "depressants" and who the hell is the man to say what is and is not depressing, and I feel great, and happy, and who even is the man anyway, Irving, or James, or David, or Phillip. Like, that's totally the sorta name the Man would have. James. Or David. Or Phil. Fuck David, _and_ Phil. You got any more weed? None that's laced with stuff? Fine. I just wanna be high. Oh, and expand my mind, and I guess medical reasons too. Whatever. Wow, I'm goddamn high.

And that's what college is like, if you're a high school student. Okay, fine, some of it is like that, but by god it ain't all like that. You great? Yeah, you ain't great. There are two thousand people in your grade, from all across the country, all with skills that far outmatch your own. Of course, you rek muthafuckas at beer pong, but what the fuck do that mean when you barely able to English? You outta yo' depth, homey. And that homey who don't speak so good? Fukin' genius at math or business or some shit. Whatevs, at least you cooler than him. Except no one gives a shit anymore, 'cuz it real life now, homey, and homey who don't speak so good now yo' boss 'cuz he know shit you don't. Maybe apply yo'self a little, homey, make sumtin o' yoself, homey. College is like real life, except cheaper and with teachers that you can talk to. In the real world it's more expensive and your boss ain't paid to listen to your struggles.

I'm an adult now, and I don't talk like that. I probably never talked like that, but youth is a great neon swathe of experience and the sense memory of youth _feels_ like that. Growing up with Matilda felt like college. You think that you know how things are, you think that you are the best there is, but then reality smack you in the face.

She was so many miles above me she might as well been an astronaut. I was king, back in my provincial high school days. Then I went to college. I got high, I got laid, I got a succession of B's and C's and then I got older and wiser and almost 21 and almost having to make my own damn way in the world and suddenly I was studying and focusing and getting B's and A's.

Reality is a harsh mistress, let me tell you what. I turned 21, I had a hell of a birthday. I also had to study for a test, and I didn't study 'cuz no teacher or parent told me too, but because I knew that it was what I had to do. Ain't that a thing? I chose to do work that I had no desire to do, that I extracted no joy from. Growin' up is a bitch. I did the work, 'cus it was necessary. I grew up.

My sister probably grew up long before I did. I guess that she probably had to. Even now, long after all that happened, I can't truly claim to know her. All that I can truly say is 'probably'. I conceive of the halcyon days of my youth with regret. I could have done more. I was sixteen, what more could I have done? I could have done more. Yet I didn't, for perfectly understandable reasons. I could have done more, yet I did not. I didn't know! I didn't understand! I could not conceive of her perspective. I could conceive of only my own.

Is that absolution?

I am young! I do not know! I, of course, know enough to show that you are wrong and that I am right, for that is the strength of youth, and shut up, I don't need to show you that I am right of course I am right, how dare you question it, I am the future, even you say that it is so, so therefore I am right, you must agree!

This argument is persuasive when you are sixteen, but it does not hold as much weight when you are twenty-two or probably thirty-two, or lord save me sixty-two. I could have done so much more. There is also a weight of age. I could have done more, yes, but that is only true with the weight of age and supposed wisdom. At the time my primary concerns were with getting laid and avoiding the wrath of my teachers and parents. At the time I could not conceive of Matilda in anything except terms of myself.

My sister grew up long before I did. I grew up in an atmosphere of acceptance. My parents accepted, even encouraged, all of my eccentricities. I was coddled, and thus viewed the world only in view of my own perspective. College was a major shock to my system. Real life even more so. Retrospection has given me insight. My sister learned far more about existence in twelve years then I did in twenty-two. She was truly exceptional.

Isn't that such a grand term? I was spiteful and hateful and concerned with only myself. Matilda grew up in an atmosphere antithetical to my own. She was not accepted, she was not encouraged, her eccentricities were hated by my parents; her defining characteristics were abhorred by her parents. She could not truly be who she was in the home of my parents; I could not allow her to be herself within the confines of my parents. She was exceptional, and thus she was resented.

I resented her. I hated her. In time I grew to lament such failings. I have told her so, though I do not truly feel that I have adequately expressed the depth of emotion I feel when contemplating my past and my behavior towards my sister. Perhaps you feel the same, or at least, you comprehend how I feel. Perhaps I could have done more. I did not do more. I can only accept that. I was young, and that was somewhat mitigating, but it does not exonerate my future actions. I am aware of myself, and I always have been. I am responsible for myself, and I always have been. I cannot change who I have been, or even more painfully, I cannot change who I am. However, I can change, indeed I can always have changed, who I will be.

I wanted to stand against, but in my attempts to define her I only defined myself in the vision of my parents. She truly rebelled, not by deciding to rebel, but by knowing herself. I don't think I ever did, know myself, that is, until I understood her.

Perhaps I always had this ability. Perhaps I could have always defined myself apart from my shitty parents. Perhaps that is why I rebelled. Perhaps I didn't sufficiently know myself to adequately rebel, and that is why I fell into the subconscious formulae of submission that my parents unconsciously enforced. I wanted her to be one thing, and yet she became another. Perhaps my failures allowed her to be the other. Perhaps I ascribe to myself too much weight of responsibility.

Perhaps that is just a euphemism for misogyny.

I would like to think that my life had any significant impact on hers, but I believe that is unlikely. I was contemplating college while she was in grade school. I considered majors while she debated which slide to slide down. Rather, I assume she thought much deeper thoughts than the choice of slides, even while I assumed that any university I applied to would be happy to accept me.

I was eventually happy to accept the acceptance of [some state college that is not prestigious but does boast a fair number of notable graduates]. It wasn't what I hoped for, but even at the age of eighteen I knew that my dreams must be tempered by the realistic expectations of my abilities.

I would never achieve the dreams of my childhood.

Perhaps, five years after I graduated, I could call myself an established computer engineer. It would sound technical enough to deter secondary questions, while the established part would confer a sense of stability that might be attractive to woman of a certain mindset. I wasn't interested in one night stands (yes I was) but in long term, meaningful relationships. At least, that was what it said on my online profiles. In truth I was just desperate for an easy lay, because I truly didn't believe that I was worth a real relationship. At best I could offer temporary and false reprieve from the crushing loneliness of existence.

I think I'm ruined.

She was not ruined. She was glorious. I have to imagine that at some point she didn't feel glorious. She felt small. She felt insignificant. I probably contributed to that. Then again, how much weight can we give ourselves when we are ten?

I cannot hide behind excuses.

I am an adult. I must take responsibility for my actions, especially those which have a negative impact on others. I shaped her. I was shaped by my parents. I choose how I interact with my environment. I am shaped by my environment. When do I take control of my life? When do I take responsibility for my actions? I was a little shit. I shaped her. Matilda.

She was extraordinary. I could have recognized it. I should have acted. I did not. I was a child then. Does that absolve me?

Certainly it does, at least to an extent. Yet, she changed everything in her school. She cleared the name of Ms. Honey. The Trunchbull and the Chokey are no more, because of her. She accomplished more than I could ever dream of. She did this by knowing herself. Should I have recognized it? I was ten. Does that absolve me?

I am no longer ten. Perhaps I was a child then. Perhaps that exonerates me. I am an adult now. Is it my responsibility to recognize her gift? Is it my responsibility to see in others what they fail to see in themselves? Where do I fit in? Can I not see myself in my reflection?

Let's examine that proposition. I am required to see others. I see them. They reveal themselves to me. Fine. Who sees me? Is it required that others care enough to see me? Is it required that others understand me?

No.

I must care for myself. The only opinion that matters is the one held by the person I see in the mirror. That does not negate seeing others. That does not negate the responsibility of seeing others. However, it does intimate that my own self-conception is all important.

Perhaps this is selfish.

Maybe we have to be selfish, at least a little. I do not care for your opinion of me, I only care for my opinion of myself. Sure, it's fine to say that some rando who calls you ugly is not worth spit. But what if your niece says the exact same thing, what if your aunt or uncle says that you are a failure? Does it matter to you?

What if your friend says the same thing? Family members are not chosen, but friends are. If someone you respect says that they do not respect you, what does that do to the respect you have for yourself?

The only opinion that matters is the one of the person I see in the mirror. But also of those whom I respect, and of those whom I love.

Her powers have left her. She lives now with her teacher. It is better. She is a child. She is learning. Jennifer Honey is learning. Perhaps, one day, when I am a father, I will learn as well. We are shaped by those around us. I love her.

Does that exonerate me?


End file.
